I’m assuming you are a brave entrepreneur trying to launch your startup, but remember that help is always needed, design is not science, is an art and probably you are not an artist. Ask for help. In this early stage of the project there’s no budget to hire a designer, I know, but I strongly recommend it anyway.

The message

First ask yourself about your site, what are you trying to tell? who are you willing to convince? How can you explain your idea in a single web page (your home) in less than 10 secs? Because that’s the time you have to convince your visitor to stay. Your home must tell all of this and be attractive at the same time.

Choose a color palette

How many colors do you need? Depending on the layout, the number of columns, the look you want the site to have and the feeling your home should transmit. Choose your site colors wisely (messages, columns, logo, background…). You better visit lots of websites for inspiration and also use this applications online:

• http://kuler.adobe.com/#create/fromacolor
• http://colorschemedesigner.com/
• http://www.colorblender.com/
• http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html
• http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html

Remember that every color has its own significance : The psychology of color in web design

Typography

It’s always a good idea to choose the right typography. This can be “the touch” for your site, the small detail that makes everything else look better. For compatibility reasons, few typographies are available to be used in the web, anyway you can use some of these Javascript based solutions:

• cufón. Uses the browser to draw vector objects using VML
• Sifr. Requires both JavaScript and Flash to be enabled.
• facelift. Using PHP (and the GD library).

Layout

More decisions to make : fluid, fixed or elastic layout?

• A fixed width site is one where the main wrapper is set to a specific immovable width independent of the user agent’s display resolution.
• A fluid or liquid layout is created by not specifying a wrapper width at all or doing so using the percentage unit of measure.
• An elastic site’s main wrapper and other elements are measured using ems as the unit of measure.

I recommend reading this post about layouts to help you decide.

With the message in your mind you can choose a layout for your site ( header, columns… ). There are some tools to help you create a CSS layout for you:

• http://csscreator.com/tools/layout
• http://www.wannabegirl.org/firdamatic/
• http://layouts.ironmyers.com/

CSS Framework

Optionally if you are not a CSS guru you may prefer using an already developed CSS Framework

Pros : Rapid development, normalization of code, standard compliance and cross-browser compatibility.

Cons : Design dependent on the framework and unnecessary code.

Some popular CSS frameworks are :

• Blueprint
• Yet Another Multicolumn Layout (YAML)
• YUI Grids CSS Foundation
• 960 Grid System
• BlueTrip
• jQuery UI CSS Framework
• CSS Drop-Down Menu Framework
• Hartija – CSS Print Framework

You can find a complete list of CSS Frameworks here

Inspiration

Before starting with the design of the site, once the message you want to transmit is clear, I recommend spending some time exploring the web for inspiration. Some web sites will help you :

• Web Creme
• CSS HEaven
• CSS Clip
• CSS Remix
• Creaticca
• Design Shack

More web design galleries for inspiration

Final notes

Now it’s time to work out your networking skills. First ask for help to your friends & family, but after that try to involve some expert in design. Use twitter and facebook and try to get as much feedback as you can. Your site should be attractive to a lot of people, so it makes sense to let them participate in the making of.

Choose your language

First of all there are 3 questions you should ask yourself ( by @JoeStump ):

• Can you find developers?
• Is it widely supported?
• Does it makes you happy?

Forget about performance issues ( PHP Doesn’t Scale, nor Ruby, nor Perl… ) because languages don’t scale. It’s not really important to make your code 300% faster, it’s not where your bottlenecks are. So instead of finding out the best ever existing programming language you better spend your time thinking about one which of them will make your life easier.

I choose PHP. I’m not saying it’s better or faster, it’s just the language I’ve working on for the last years. There are many resources for PHP on internet to help you master it and get the best from it.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Now I recommend some investigation. Can I implement my idea in any of the already developed technologies? Can I use a Content Management System for my project? You should really consider about using an existing CMS and apply the necessary modifications better than develop all your idea from scratch.

A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish various kinds of digital media and electronic text (via Wikipedia)

Some of the best Open Source CMS are:

1. Silverstripe (PHP, MySQL)
2. Joomla!(PHP, MySQL)
3. Drupal (PHP, MySQL)
4. Plone (Python, MySQL)
5. Alfresco (Java, MySQL)
6. Wordpress(PHP, MySQL)
7. OpenCMS (Java, MySQL)
8. Mambo (PHP, MySQL)
9. Typo3 (PHP, MySQL)
10. e107 (PHP, MySQL)
11. Liferay (Java)
12. DotNetNuke (.NET)
13. MODx (PHP, MySQL)
14. XOOPS (PHP, MySQL)

They are all pretty customizable (using plugins) and with no big modifications you can have your site up and running in nearly no time.

My application is too complicated! CMS are not for me

Depending on the needs of your application maybe a CMS won’t be useful for you. It’s time to choose a programming framework. A framework is an abstraction in which common code providing generic functionality can be selectively overridden or specialized by user code providing specific functionality.

It’s the base for all your code with additional objects to help you deal with the different problems you may encounter during the development. Some important features to look for in are:

• MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern
• Templating
• Caching
• Security
• Database abstraction layer
• Filesystem access
• Form Validation
• Inbuilt CMS
• Inbuilt auth

Known PHP frameworks ( via One2 )

• Yii
• CodeIgniter
• CakePHP
• PHPDevShell
• Akelos
• Symfony
• Prado
• Zend
• ZooP
• QPHP
• KohanaPHP

Other Frameworks:

• JNI (Java)
• Twisted (Python)
• Spring (Java)
• TrueView (.NET)
• BFC (.NET)
• Ruby on Rails (Ruby)

As you can see I always try to use any known technology. Here you can find a complete list of frameworks

Sources :

15 Open Source Content Management Systems
Choosing a Framework

Part 1 – Choosing a domain name

Maybe the hardest part. If you are reading this probably you had a good idea, but when tried to register the domain name for your idea that name was already registered. Even some variations on your idea were not available also. I won’t talk here about domainers and how they kill the initiative of most entrepreneurs, but I’ll try to help you find the right domain for your startup.

First of all some tips about the domain name:

1. Choose 5 keywords of your business to generate the domain name
2. The domain name must be unique (no other business with the same name or similar)
3. Your Brand should be your domain name (change your brand if necessary & possible)
4. Try to make it short. It must be easy to spell, remember and type
5. Only Choose Dot-Com Available Domains (not if you run a local business)
6. Reject Hyphens and Numbers
7. Be careful with phonetically similar names (and register them also if possible)
8. Forget about 2.0 names (unless you have big money for marketing)

Find your keywords

There are a few free keyword suggestion tools base on search results

1. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. https://account.uk.miva.com/advertiser/Account/Popups/KeywordGenBox.asp
3. http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
4. http://www.selfseo.com/keyword_suggestion_tool.php

Keyword based Domain name generators

You can find several tools to help choose a domain name based on your keywords:

1. http://www.makewords.com
2. http://www.nameboy.com
3. http://www.dotomator.com
4. http://www.bustaname.com
5. http://www.123finder.com
6. http://www.rwm.net/wizard.htm
7. http://www.eyeondomain.com/search.html

Choosing the right domain name

At this point you may have at least 10 possible available domain names, now you should let other people help you. Never do this alone, make a poll between people you know (friends, family…. ). The more people involved the better will be the domain name (always include a SEO in this stage of the project)

Final notes

Do your best to avoid buying an existing domain, be creative and make up your own brand. This is just the first step and can be really hard sometimes. Don’t give up, it’s just the beginning and the best is yet to come.

Take your time, if everything goes fine this domain name will be with you for a long time.

Take a look at your competence, they can give you great ideas.

Think about the evolution of your business, Are you going international? Does your domain name suits the new market  needs? Can be translated?